“Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice” ~ Nora Roberts

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.” ~ Wolfgang Von Goethe

“Once you awaken, you still use the word “I”, but it will come from a much deeper place.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

The word magic comes from Magus or Magician. In Tarot, the Magus is the energy of all possibility, The Fool, brought into focus as a singular idea. The root of the word “mag” means “to do or make” and is also the root of imagine. In sacred geometry, 1 (the Magus) emerges from the center of unity (0 or fool).* It is the beginning of creation.

So, I make up, it is when the Cosmos first knows itself as separate from itself, in a way, through each of us as individuals. We are each the result of a singular focus out of all possibility. Following that, I make up that we are all both magic and magicians. We are all magicians on the frontiers of unfolding consciousness. And yes, it might be said, we are all fools as well.

Last week, a client came to her call wanting to invoke more magic in her life. She is aware of the way I work with messages from the Mystery, which I relate to as the more real, and wants to experience more of that in her life; more winks and cosmic whispers, more enchantment. I left the call reflecting upon my own path to trusting the whispers and messages.

It’s an interesting path to journey. Most of us are delighted by synchronicity and momentarily pushed into our right brain by déjà vu. Somewhere along the line it becomes all to “woo woo” for most. We create for ourselves a false sense of security in what we can say is real.

“Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches; scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science; but man needs both.” ~ Fritjof Capra

What is real, what is illusion? What is true, what is false? What senses are we using to ascertain the difference?

We have senses that we think we can rely upon – taste, smell, sight, sound, touch. To see it is to believe it. But any good magician with their sleight of hand will have us believe we’ve seen a woman cut in half in a box with her legs still kicking and face still smiling. Can we rely upon our sight then?

My own path of magic has been one of solitude, particularly in meditation and in nature. It has led me to trust my unfamiliar senses and to discover that the world around me is speaking to me, co-creating with me, dreaming (with) me all the time. All I have to do is notice and be willing to dwell in the inquiry of being both the dreamer and the dreamed.

Some might say I am deceiving myself. I might be. You see, I figure I have an option of deceiving myself in an infinite number ways and so I choose to focus on a path of Enchantment and Beauty. I choose to resonate in the key of Love. I’m no model of perfection. I am a fool and a magician walking the path.

Others choose to deceive themselves by thinking that they can find a way to control “reality” and that war might be one of the answers. They see themselves as separate from all others, as victims, and live in a state of us-against-them scarcity. They rely upon the tools of blame, shame, manipulation, pity. I’m familiar with these. I’ve used them plenty myself, but to little end other than a whole lot of suffering.

What’s real? If we think it is something finite, then we forget that we are conscious creators. We hand off the responsibility for consciously co-creating our evolution. If we are each a unique expression of one unified Source, then we are the scouts on the frontier reporting back on the experience.

We are in dreamtime, but if we are not consciously and responsibly so, then we are not free.

This is why I think it’s important to become as present to the now moment as possible, because there is no future that does not come out of now. Our choice in this moment is the cause of the effect we experience in our future. When that future arrives whether it is the next hour, next day, next year, it arrives as now. To be free is to move with the current. But it is not to be the victim of the current.

“We may be floating on Tao, but there is nothing wrong with steering. If Tao is like a river, it is certainly good to know where the rocks are.” Deng Ming-Dao

That is why I talk about “dancing into the Mystery” – it is a way of expressing what I see in my imagination as the experience of living in the present moment, so awake as to be open to every pivotal moment and make conscious choices; claiming full responsibility (ability to respond) and authority (being the author of my life). In other words, I cannot blame the rock for my inability (or my unwillingness) to see it. I do claim responsibility and authority for living in the question, not becoming overly attached to the answers with which I play and recognizing when I have.

I’ve deceived myself in so many ways and every day, more is revealed to me.

Again, what is real?

Is the glass half empty? Is the glass half full? Is the glass an illusion?

What is the way in which you have chosen to deceive yourself?

Whatever your method of deception, it is having an impact on us all.

What magic will you create?

Please enjoy this TED talk by Marco Tempest. I watched it this morning and it inspired me to write this post. It’s entertaining and may fill in some blanks where I’ve made assumptions.

Something outside my window catches my attention and I glance up from the computer screen to see a bird land on the branch of a tree.

I’m contemplating the Creator, the Divine, the Universe, whatever you want to call it.

I’m contemplating Love as the force and the source; Love wanting to know itself, to see itself, to be revealed to itself.

I’m thinking of the Universe looking back upon itself.

I’m contemplating the paradox of oneness and separateness, of experiencing and being Love.

I wonder:

Am I being revealed to myself by way of noticing that the bird sees me?

Does the bird in the tree see itself, know itself to exist, by way of me seeing it?

Callie, the yellow lab, barks at my front door. She wants a biscuit and a walk. She is my reminder of the importance of adventure, so off we go winding our way through various trails in the local woods.

I ponder the perception of trees. If a tree can’t see with eyes, how am I revealed to myself through a tree? I pause before a redwood use my body as a kind of gauge to sense how the tree lets me know I exist. There is a feeling in my body. It’s a knowing, yes, and it’s a vibration. It’s also a groundedness, rootedness and strength. These are the words I give the vibration. Easy enough to be with and there is a haunting that’s a bit harder for me to receive: the grandness of size.

photo: Kathy Loh

At the river, I listen to the bubbling conversation of the water clamoring over rocks. Sound is another way of knowing, of being known. If I were blind, I would not use sight and I would certainly use sound.

How do I come to know myself through sound? Maybe this is why I find music, especially singing, so compelling.

I sing, and I hear myself, therefore I am?

You sing and I listen, therefore I am? We are?

I watch Callie follow her nose in excited pursuit of something that does not exist for me, but is highly potent for her. She experiences her world through her nose and ears more than her sight. Imagine how the grasses experience Callie and how they experience themselves in relationship to her.

Wherever you are sitting now, stop and close your eyes and explore all your senses.

What if the only way you had ever known your world was without sight?

What if the only way you had ever known your world was through touch?

What if touch and sound were the only way you “saw” yourself?

What opens up for you in your experience of yourself, others and “reality” when you explore these and similar questions?